Soldiers
by Thanfiction
Summary: A soldier's got to do what a soldier's got to do.


Metallica was good. Metallica - Dad and Napster notwithstanding - was awesome and would always forever and ever amen have a place in his personal top ten. But Seek and Destroy at that volume at four am after a fucking eight day hunt that had involved driving all the fucking way to fucking taintcheese Idaho and back and so wiped he'd fallen asleep in his clothes was something else. The bunker fucking echoed. Dude needed to learn some basic fucking manners.

Dean didn't bother knocking. Cas wouldn't be able to hear him, and maybe, behind the headache and the exhaustion that ached to the joints of his toes, there was a part of him that enjoyed the petty retaliation for the number of times he'd been wing-whooshed half out of his skin if he did startle the son of a bitch. He opened the door, taking a deep breath…and the gesturing hand froze on the "look, Cas," that strangled off to just "llluu—" and left him gaping stupidly.

Cas had the blade. His own long, sleek, three-sided flashing silver, his eyes were closed, and he was doing some kind of…kata? But not in the crane-kick on the beach om rom rom way. This was like Bruce Lee by way of Chuck Norris by way of whatever the name was for that Bat'Leth stuff Worf did that should have looked stupid because that was the worst weapon ever but still looked deadly as fuck.

Because this? Was deadly as fuck. For all that Dean had never been formally trained in any "school" of fighting, he'd studied for thirty-odd years at the dojo of You-Lose-You-Die, and he had the fracture record and scars to prove his teachers had cut him no slack. He could recognize that beyond the speed and the grace and the way the blade was spun and slashed and tossed blindly, effortlessly from hand to hand - across the back, up over a shoulder and caught and how many millenium had it taken to learn that thing where he dropped it and rolled and was there to catch it - was a lot of severed heads and gashed bellies and shanked ribcages.

Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier.

It wasn't like he'd never seen Cas fight. Fuck, they'd hacked their way through Purgatory the squishy, ugly way together for weeks, but that had almost all been the palm-to-the-face flashbang white light smiting gig. The cold, competent ease with the automatic despite the chemical haze in Zachariah's future nightmare. He'd even seen the angel blade in his friend's hands a few times over their years together, but always so fast, so brutally quick it had never really registered and still, never like this.

And sure, that's because Cas was that goddamned good. Life's not a Van Damme movie. If a fight scene lasts more than a few seconds, you got a problem. But this…this was blood ballet. This was art. This made his marrow ache to say teach me, this was thousands more millions of years than he'd have to learn, this was…this…

This was naked.

That really should have registered earlier.

Because he wasn't kinda naked. Not shirtless but boxers or gym shorts or something. Bare-ass nothing coming between him and his Calvins hold the jeans bring a whole new meaning to going commando naked.

It wasn't like it was anything Dean hadn't seen before. Hunting could be like a locker room sometimes where in all the blood and the tiny motels you just don't give a shit. But the unspoken there was you don't look, and you sure as fuck don't see all the things the big, shapeless coat lied the broad shoulders, the narrow waist, the powerful lines of muscular thighs and a back that rippled taut beneath the skin at every twist and lunge. It wasn't his or Benny's kind of brick-shithouse brawler's build or Sammy's underwear model fitness rat definition, it was just…efficient. He chose the word efficient. Perfect was just stupid.

And It wasn't porn, not really, it was like something off a vase or out of a book where they explained that this or that ancient clan of elite warriors were so badass they fought in nothing but warpaint. Like a pagan statue brought to vicious, merciless life.

And porn. And definitely, oh-shit-this-is-not-ok-I'm-straight-and-in-my-thir ties-but-I'm-so-hard-if-I-move-my-jeans-are-gonna- make-me-a-eunuch porn. And he couldn't breathe, and Lars Ulrich was basically following his pulse at this point and this was wrong and the little voice in the back of his head that was screaming in panic and the other little voice that sounded like Sam in his snidebitchItoldyouso mode could both fucking gank themselves because they were not helping.

And now the music had ended and Cas was crouched in the center of the room and the first bars of Metal Militia had just started when Cas said "Pause" and for a single freaky instant he thought the mojo was back when the song complied until he remembered Sam had set him up with an iPhone and there was probably an app for that you moron. But only so much can be expected of a dude with no blood above the waist who has just been roundhouse kicked by his own apparently repressed something and he couldn't move as Cas stood slowly.

He couldn't move as Cas turned to face him. His expression was unreadable, his face flushed, the sweat sheened and beaded and trickling. It looked dirty, it looked human, it glittered like something holy and those things should not have gone together. Like it shouldn't have gone together the way Cas tossed the blade at the wall and nailed it perfectly not to stab into the plaster but to fall into the hooks that were there to catch it and the way Dean's gasp echoed thick and hot in his cock.

He licked his lips. Forced air to happen and pretended his voice didn't sound too tight, too glib, the shield too obvious. "They…uh…Kill 'Em All a popular album up there in the Garrison? Was that Uriel's thing? 'Cuz, I mean —"

"—it's your thing, Dean." Cas was breathing hard. Of course he was. But he was still in absolute control of it and that was so much worse. Almost as bad as the way he was approaching, the way he wouldn't drop eye contact, the way he seemed to know. "Warrior's music."

Something laugh-ish rattled hysterically raw on the bottom of his throat. "That Matrix stuff was a little past my pay grade, Cas."

"I would be honored to hunt with you, if you will have me." Which should not have sounded in any way like fuck me. And wasn't an invitation to anything. Even if Cas was way, way inside the personal space now and he could smell the sweat, the heat of his body, the adrenaline, the lingering traces of ozone that Metatron hadn't quite been able to tear away. Even if Dean was absolutely not looking down and not noticing anything that was a totally natural side effect of strenuous exertion sometimes anyway.

"Have you?" And they weren't talking about Hunting any more. If they ever had been.

"I've let you down. Badly, and in ways I can't repay."

"Who's keeping score?"

"Usually, Dean, you are."

"Yeah, well, I've been reconsidering a lot of stuff recently."

"Have you?" He could feel Cas' breath on his lips. See every shade and streak of blue and through the darkness they surrounded until it seemed everything was there from the inside of a coffin with his shoulder still burning to the blaze of wings streaked against a night sky. Dean closed his own eyes, let his hand come up just enough to set the very tips of his fingers against the dip of Cas' hip, feeling the heat of the still-engorged muscle that still trembled ever so slightly from being pushed to its limits. Everything was finding new limits tonight.

"What's going on in…Cas? Dean?"

Never, in thirty years - and including such notable rocky patches as Ruby and Lucifer - had Dean wanted so badly to gank his own brother.

But Cas didn't flinch. His arm came up, two fingers out, and Dean was stunned to see the tiny flare of light against Sam's bafflement-creased forehead for a split second before the hazel eyes rolled back and he collapsed in an enormous, graceless heap of flannel pajama bottoms and tousled hair to the hall's tiled floor. Dean swallowed hard, all but speechless for so many reasons. "You…but…I thought…are you still —"

It was so rare to see Cas smile, much less smirk, but this was both, and all the irresistably wicked for its blatantly feigned innocence. "Maybe just a speck."

This time, Dean did not hesitate. Shock was one thing, but in his line of work, it was something you got over quickly if you wanted to survive. Those who lived by the sword had to make quick decisions, commit themselves to a course of action and if it was the wrong one, deal with the consequences later. And if that means grabbing a speck of angel by the back of his neck with one hand and cramming your mouths together as you shove him forward into his room and use your other hand to slam the door and lock your nosy-ass little brother out before he wakes up, well, a soldier's gotta do what a soldier's gotta do.


End file.
